


and the world keeps beginning

by tree



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Birthday Sex, F/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:15:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m fifty, Scully, not dead.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the world keeps beginning

There was an emergency at the hospital early on his fiftieth birthday and Scully left in the dark with a swift kiss and a whispered, “Happy birthday”. Mulder rolled over and tumbled back into sleep.

When he woke for the second time, groggy and feeling every one of those fifty years, he noticed the envelope on the nightstand. Even after so long together, anything Scully gave him was cause for delight.

He ripped the envelope and pulled out a square card with a photograph of two wooden dolls. “You’re the one,” it said. He opened it and read, “I’m glad I’m the other one.” Underneath she’d written, simply, _I love you_. A goofy grin spread across his face. Suddenly, fifty didn’t feel so bad.

 

It was early afternoon when he heard the car coming up the drive. He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch as Scully parked. Exhaustion was written in the slope of her shoulders when she got out of the car, but she straightened and smiled when she saw him.

“Hey, birthday boy,” she said as she walked up the front steps.

“Hey yourself. I liked the card.” He tilted her chin up and brushed her mouth with his.

She hummed against his lips and smiled as she pulled away. “Good.” 

“So how did it go?” he asked once they were inside and she had shrugged out of her coat.

“It’s hard to tell. There was cerebral haemorrhaging which caused swelling and pressure on the brain. We managed to drain the fluid to relieve the pressure, and inserted a stent to continue to drain, but we won’t know what kind of long-term damage has been done until she wakes up. She’s stable now, at least.”

Mulder held out his hand and she walked into his arms, wrapping hers tightly around him with a sigh. “Sorry I ruined your birthday.”

“It’s not ruined. You can still make it up to me.”

“Would I be correct in assuming that making it up to you involves various sexual favours?” Her voice was amused.

“Scully, you know me so well.”

She laughed against his chest. “I’m sorry to disappoint you but I think you might have to wait. I think I’ve strained my right trapezius. Driving home was an interesting experience since I couldn’t hold my head up straight.”

“Ouch. Want me to rub it for you?”

“It’s okay. I’ll just take some ibuprofen and have a hot shower.”

“Are you sure? Did you know that massage results in faster healing of soft tissue injuries? I read that in one of your medical journals.”

She snorted softly. “All right, Dr Mulder. Would you mind helping me with my shirt? I don’t think I can manage it.”

“Scully, when have I ever minded anything that involves you removing one or more articles of clothing?”

“That’s good because you’ll need to help me with my bra as well.”

 

In the kitchen he set up two of the chairs: one backwards that Scully could straddle, supporting her head on her arms, and the other facing forwards right behind her for him.

Scully sat in front of him, her skin stippled with goosebumps.

“Want me to turn the heat up?” he asked.

“Not as long as your hands are warm.”

She crossed her arms over the back of the chair and laid her head on them. “I think this is the most comfortable I’ve been since I got out of bed.”

Mulder warmed some lotion between his hands and then smoothed it gently across her shoulders. Using his whole palms, fingers splayed, he coated her entire back in long strokes, warming her skin and the muscles underneath.

“That feels nice,” Scully murmured.

Beginning at the base of her spine, he made palms out movements from the centre of her back to her sides all the way up to her neck. Then he switched to working his thumbs along the outer edges of her vertebrae. With each pass, her muscles grew more relaxed and her breathing deepened. Finally, he began pressing firmly into the muscle surrounding her scapula.

Scully let out a short, sharp sound.

Mulder stilled his hands. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

“No, keep going. It's good.”

He concentrated on her right side, moving up and outward from her shoulder blade. As he worked, he tried to ignore Scully’s soft moans when he found a particularly sore spot. It didn’t help that her moans of pain sounded exactly like other, better kinds of moans. And she was naked from the waist up. And he was rubbing his hands all over her. Certain parts of his nervous system were responding in ways that were entirely inappropriate to the situation.

It was such a cliche to get a hard-on when giving a woman a massage, he thought. It didn’t help that Scully was practically sitting in his lap, either. _She’s in pain_ , he told himself sternly. _Don't be a jerk._

After a few minutes of concentrating on her trapezius, the muscle felt looser, more malleable under his touch. He moved his focus to her lovely neck, relieving the tension he knew he'd find there, his fingers working upwards into the loose knot of her hair. He rubbed gently along her temples then down to soothe the hinge of her jaw. Scully was a clencher.

She sighed and more of the stiffness in her posture eased with her exhale. 

After so many years of holding back, being allowed to touch her was always a pleasure. But when she let him see her vulnerability like this, when she opened herself to him, it filled him with a helpless, joyful tenderness. He had to press his cheek against her back for just a moment until the keen edge of it softened.

"Mulder?" A hint of concern laced her voice.

"That's me," he said, and pressed a quick kiss to her neck. His hands had fallen to her shoulders, so he worked his thumbs into the tense muscle there, stretching his fingers down to her collar bones, before moving outward to the knobs of her shoulders and down again to her trapezii. He kneaded both until they yielded equally under his hands. 

Easing away, he let his splayed palms pass straight down her back one more time, then settled them lightly on her waist. "How's that?"

She sat back and leaned against his chest, sliding her hands along the tops of his thighs. “Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath. “That feels amazing.”

His brain attempted to parse topless Scully rubbing his thighs with the words “thank you” and “amazing” and came up with the mental equivalent of a whimper. The arousal that had subsided with his concentration came rushing back like a wave.

“Aren’t you cold, Scully?” he managed.

“Not really. You’re so warm.” She slid back even further so that she was flush against him and her ass made direct contact with his crotch.

Mulder moaned and gripped her hips. In response she wiggled a little.

“Christ, Scully, don’t do that,” he begged.

She reached up and hooked her arms around his neck, giving him a spectacular view of her breasts. She shifted against him again, just a little side-to-side motion, and he watched avidly as her nipples hardened.

“I haven’t given you your birthday present yet, have I?” She placed her hands over his and slid them from her hips to the soft skin of her belly and then up and over her breasts. Then she slid her hands back along his arms and resumed her long, slow strokes against his thighs.

He dropped his head into the crook of her neck, making a desperate grab for the high ground while he still could. "You should probably lie down. Put some heat on your shoulder."

She wiggled her shoulders experimentally, which had the added effect of shifting her breasts in his palms. A soft sound of pleasure escaped her. "No, I feel much better now. You have excellent hands, Mulder."

Those hands had begun moving over her breasts when he wasn't paying attention. She was all warm, soft skin and curves, and he was weak, so very weak. He began rubbing her nipples in the same slow rhythm that her hips rocked against him and she arched her chest into his hands with a throaty moan.

Their positions were too awkward to kiss her so he settled for licking and sucking her shoulder, the side of her throat, the little lobe of her ear. Her breath became ragged, her body undulating against him, and soon it was more than he could stand. He fumbled at the waist of her trousers until he could get his hand inside them and down into her underwear. The heat of her body was incredible.

When they'd first become lovers the excitement of being with her had come from discovery, the newness of it all. Now there was a different sort of excitement in knowing exactly how she liked to be touched, what made her crazy, how to make it last or how to make her come fast and hard.

Sliding two fingers up into her, he used his thumb on her clit. The position was a little uncomfortable for him, but the way she moved against him and her breathy little sounds more than made up for it. He placed his other hand on her belly to hold her to him and felt her muscles contract and release as she worked herself on his fingers. Somehow it was unbelievably sexy. 

She gripped his thighs and rolled her head on his shoulder to press her face against his neck. "That's so good," she whispered.

"Yeah," he said. Her warm breath on his neck, the slight sway of her breasts, the hot, slick feel of her, it was all good, good, good.

They rocked together until her movements became more urgent and he was unashamedly rubbing himself against her back. Then he felt it, the first flutters inside her, and then the strong grip of spasms around his fingers as she came. She moaned low and jerked her hips once, twice, before slumping back against him, breathing hard.

He stayed with her, easing her down, until she stilled his hand, pulling it out of her pants. She hummed, stretching her arms up and arching her back. "So that's a full service massage," she said and shifted slightly to look at him with a wicked grin. "I think it must be your turn now. Unless you're not interested anymore."

Interested didn't even begin to cover it. “I’m fifty, Scully, not dead.”

"I'm glad to hear it," she said, standing up to slide off her trousers and underwear. Mulder wondered if there'd ever come a time when her body wasn't fascinating to him. He loved the elegant lines of her back, the indentations at the base of her spine, the play of muscle as she moved. And, of course, too much couldn't be said about her excellent ass.

Oh, but the front view was even better. Naked, she turned and straddled him, her feet on the rungs of the chair for balance. In this position, her breasts were almost at his eye level. "Happy birthday to me," he said.

Scully laughed and leaned down to kiss him, her fingers stroking under his collar and up the back of his neck. He shivered when she began tracing the shape of his ears. Their mouths moved against each other, wet and sloppy. Mulder was too far gone for finesse. He grabbed Scully's hips and yanked her forward so that he could grind himself against her, filling his hands with her firm, round backside.

"Wanna fuck you," he mumbled against her lips, just in case she was in any doubt.

He felt her hands squeeze between their bellies and he let go of his death grip on her so she could get at his pants. She lifted herself up, he tugged them down, and somehow they managed to shove everything past his knees. Then she was over him, on him, around him, so good it fuzzed his brain. He was drowning in her. Everywhere, everywhere was Scully.

She rose up so that only the head of his penis was still inside her body and braced her hands on his shoulders. Then she began to pulse her hips just slightly with the tiniest of motions. The sensation made his head swim.

“Fuck. Scully.” He grabbed on to her thighs and felt the flex of the muscles as she moved.

“You like that?”

“Fuck. Yeah.” Every neuron was concentrating on the place where Scully’s body enveloped his. The sensation was amazing. His bones were melting.

She maintained the ruthlessly slow pace until they were both panting. He watched her through slitted eyes, incapable of anything more than holding on while she killed him with pleasure. She was so damn beautiful.

Her head fell back, her breasts swaying right in front of him. He took one in his mouth, licking the nipple, nibbling lightly with his teeth. She tasted like sweat, salty and sweet at the same time. He wanted to suck on her like candy, lick her like a tootsie roll pop until he got to the chewy centre and then eat her like a man dying of hunger.

The need to come had made him completely deranged.

Someone was moaning. It might have been him. He tried to pull her down, get further inside her, but she resisted, her thighs straining under his hands. Amazing thighs. Everything about her was amazing and he was going to die while she fucked him so slowly it was like some new form of torture.

But then she came, suddenly, with no warning, just a choked cry and the tightening of her cunt around his cock, swallowing him while she shook. 

And that was it. He couldn’t, couldn’t stand it anymore, yanking her down as he thrust up, growling. “You are so fucking sexy.” He lasted maybe thirty seconds before orgasm tore him wide open, but they were the most satisfying thirty seconds of his life. The minutes following, while he sat boneless and blissful, weren't too shabby either.

Scully was draped over him like a small, person-shaped blanket. They were both panting, sticky, and limp. If not for her weight, Mulder was fairly certain he would have simply slid off the chair and puddled on the floor.

"This is the best birthday ever," he said, when his brain remembered how to process language. His throat felt hoarse. Apparently it _had_ been him moaning.

Scully huffed a laugh on his shoulder. "That wasn't actually your birthday present, you know."

"Have mercy, Scully. I'm fifty now."

She raised her head and gave him a fond smile, even as she shook her head at him. "I know," she said, running her hand through his hair in exactly the same way she'd been doing for almost twenty years. "And you can't know how happy I am about that."

Mulder was sure he could. Her happiness was his own. "I love you," he told her quietly.

"I love you, too." She kissed him softly, sweetly, her mouth smiling, her hands in his hair. "Now come on. We need to shower and then I can give you your real birthday present."

He caught her as she started to untangle herself and cupped her face in his hands. "I don't need anything else, Scully. My real present is you."

 

*

 

_Do you love me?_ she asks.  
 _I love you,_

she answers, and the world keeps beginning.

Li-Young Lee, _Living with Her_

**Author's Note:**

> hopelessly sappy Y/Y? trees are supposed to be full of sap, though, right? oh man i am not good at puns.


End file.
